Edit another user's Out of Office message in Exchange 2010 without editing permissions

Introduction

After encountering the need on a regular basis to edit someone's Out of Office message, I have found that most sites tell you to edit their permissions, wait for replication and then access their account either via OWA or by creating a new profile. This takes more time and effort than I can muster.

This How-to shows you to perform the same steps more quickly and without editing permissions in Exchange 2010.

Steps
(4 total)

1

Access the Exchange Management Console

Ensure you use an appropriate Administrator account.

2

Access the Web Management Interface

If you're unsure how to get to this, click on Toolbox> Message Tracking.

Use the same Administrator account details to login.

3

Choose the User to manage

In the top-left corner you should see a link that says 'Manage My Organization'; hover over this link and click on 'Select User' from the drop down.

From the list, search and select the User's name.

4

Edit their message

A new window/tab should open with basic management options for that user; on the right-hand-side there are a list of shortcuts, click 'Tell people you're on vacation'. This will give you access to both internal and external messages.

Once completed, remember to save everything and log out.

Conclusion

You should find that this is a quick & easy way to edit messages and without remembering which permissions to add and then remove afterwards.

This may work with Exchange 2007 but I haven't tested so I can't be sure; if you have Exchange 2007 I'd be interested to find out!

Once you have the full permissions for the required user, you can log onto your email acct online using your company's OWA(online web access) address. example: https://mail.domain.com. log in with with your acct. Once you have your account open. Change the web address to https://mail.domain.com/exchange/theuseracct where "theuseracct" is the user's acct. You should now be able to see the users email. Go to options and pick category to make the necessary changes and save.

Wonderful! We have been looking for a way that is easier than resetting domain passwords or giving full access to a mailbox (shouldn't strictly be able to view anyone else's emails), so this works perfectly.